A Man Of Reality (DHRUV KUMAR)

(1) NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can anls form the minds of reasoning amnas upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the princpiE Dn which T bring up my own children and this is the principle on whichI bring up these children. Stick to the facts, sin (2) The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vauit of a school-room, and thie speaker, square forefinger emphasised his observations by underscoring every senten with a line on the schoolmaster's sleeve. The emplasis was helped by the speakers square wall of a forchead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The cmphasis was helped by the speaker's mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard ser The emphasis was helped by the speaker's voice, which was inflexible, dry, ard dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface. all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarceh warchouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker's obstiniate carriage square coat, square legs, square shoulders,-nay, his very neck cloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as i Wias-all helped the emphasis.

(3) In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!"

(4) The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim.

(5) THOMAS GRADGRIND, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for anything over. Thomas Gradgrind sir-imperatively Thomas-Thomas Gradgrind. With a rule and a pair of scales and the multiplication table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to get some othet non-sensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, or Augustus Gradgrind, ot John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all supposititious, non-existent persotns). but into the head of Thomas Gradgrind-no, sir! (6) In such terms, Mr Gradgrind always mentally introduced himself, whether to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the public in general. In such terms, no doubt. substituting the words 'boys and girls', for 'sir', Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, who were to be filled so full of facts.

(7) Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the spacious cellar cellarage before mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one discharge. He seemed a galvanising apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical substitutefor the tender voung imaginations that were to be stormed away.

(8) "Girl number twenty.' said Mr Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his square forefinger, 'I don't know that girl. Who is that girl?

(9) "Sissy Jupe, sir,' explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and curtseying.

(10) Sissy is not a name,' said Mr Gradgrind. 'Don't call yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia.

(11) It's father as he calls me Sissy, sir,' returned the young girl in a trembling voice, and with another curtsev.

(12) Then he has no business to do it,' said Mr Gradgrind. Tell him he mustn't. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?"

(13) 'He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir."

(14) Mr Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling with his hand.

(15) We don't want to know anything about that, here. You mustn't tell us about that, here. Your father breaks horses, doesn't he?

(16) If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do break horses in the ring, sir."

(17) You mustn't tell us about the ring, here. Very well, then. Describe your father as a horse-breaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare say?

(18) Oh yes, sir."

(19) Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and horse-breaker. Give me your definition of a horse.'

(20) (Sissy Jupe was thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.) (21) Girl number twenty unable to define a horse! said Mr Gradgrind, for the general benefit of all the little pitchers. Girl number twenty possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals! Some boy's definition of a horse. Bitzer, vours.